> Would you call every other leader selection process where the US has given their support for a candidate a coup?
That's clearly a mischaracterization of what happened in Ukraine. Yes, Washington declared its support for the opposition in Ukraine. It also:
- bragged about spending $5 billion funding the opposition over preceding years.
- participated closely in the Yalta European Solution for decades, which was a forum for Washington power brokers + Ukrainian oligarchs.
- endorsed the overthrow of Yanukovych (i.e. by not demanding his democratic government was restored, which e.g. Washington did in Niger recently).
- and so on
It was a coup. It was primarily achieved through covert action, which by definition avoids yielding smoking guns that would cater to your personal, precise, technical definition of "coup", but given the totality of the circumstances we can only conclude that it was a coup.
> It was a coup. It was primarily achieved through covert action, which by definition avoids yielding smoking guns that would cater to your personal, precise, technical definition of "coup", but given the totality of the circumstances we can only conclude that it was a coup.
What it seems like is that there isn't much evidence or sources. Anyone could claim anything was achieved through primary covert action and has not yielded any smoking guns or real evidence.
I could claim that all the coup hubbub was started by Russia as an attempt to ferment a civil war in Ukraine as a pretext for invading as achieved through covert action.
And when that failed they used there 'little green men' to start the civil war instead.
Exactly. There is no real evidence, so we can't conclude one way or another. A lot of people are treating the Nuland call like a smoking gun, but it isn't one.
That's clearly a mischaracterization of what happened in Ukraine. Yes, Washington declared its support for the opposition in Ukraine. It also:
- bragged about spending $5 billion funding the opposition over preceding years.
- participated closely in the Yalta European Solution for decades, which was a forum for Washington power brokers + Ukrainian oligarchs.
- endorsed the overthrow of Yanukovych (i.e. by not demanding his democratic government was restored, which e.g. Washington did in Niger recently).
- and so on
It was a coup. It was primarily achieved through covert action, which by definition avoids yielding smoking guns that would cater to your personal, precise, technical definition of "coup", but given the totality of the circumstances we can only conclude that it was a coup.